Michael De Santa

Michael De Santa (previously Townley) is one of the three main Characters of GTA V. He's a former bank robber from the Midwest who got a sweetheart deal with the FIB and managed to retire to Los Santos. However, his wife spent most of his money and he is forced to go back to crime in order reclaim his fortune.

Michael's story will center around how the breakdown of his bought idyllic life pushes a man to breaking point. He is described as a man with everything and nothing to lose both at the same time, and his seemingly blisful existence in San Andreas will be changed forever by the events of GTA V.

In IGN's Meet the Cast article, series creator Dan Houser of Rockstar Games outlined more information about Michael's character.

"Michael, to me, is... Who is he? I know who he is, I'm just trying to... He's the person who is trying to ignore some rather large mistakes that they have made. The person who's trying to forget about certain practical but still selfish decisions that they took. He's a man, also, obsessed by images and by appearances and who, when the world doesn't live up to those images and appearances, doesn't know what to do. He just retreats into his head. What he also is, when we started out... What he kind of evolved into as we began thinking about him and developing him... He was the first character we came up with. He began as the idea of, what happens to a regular GTA protagonist after they retire? Then you think, what would make him retire? He's a man with a big ego and plenty of good values and plenty of bad values."

Michael's Lifestyle

As outlined previously, Michael's life is said to be comfortable, living in San Andreas after retiring from a life of crime.

In reality, Michael's world is not as perfect as it seems. His wife has lost interest, his kids are distant and his ego are all getting in the way of creating his own piece of paradise.

Dan Houser of Rockstar has said that Michael is an extremely interesting character and a man who has been completely victorious only to find that being the victor isn't as appealing as he thought.

Houser said: "[Michael's] flaws are certainly his large ego, an inability to control his temper, and his willingness to make large moral compromises. To me, that's a very interesting character. A guy who's in his mid-40s and on the cusp of middle age who doesn't know what to do, but made a bunch of money and does not know what to do with it. He's theoretically won, but the spoils of victory aren't necessarily what he imagined. For us that's a very interesting character, unlike what we've done in the past or what we've seen in much entertainment in general, let alone any video games. That was interesting."

He's Not Tommy Vercetti

Back when most of GTA V's plot, characters and pretty much everything else were still a mystery, many people, including IGN's Greg Miller, thought Michael might actually be the protagonist of GTA: Vice City, Tommy Vercetti.

The similarities were pretty striking, and a split-second glimpse of Michael's face in GTA V's original trailer prompted the following image:

In fact, the chances of Michael being Tommy Vercetti were completely dashed by Rockstar during GTA V's big reveal, as they simultaneously revealed that GTA V's timeline exists in a seperate universe to that of the original games which began with GTA 3 and ended with GTA: Vice City Stories.